Compliment
by LadyMonogatari
Summary: Lady is on some truth kick and Dante is obliged to tell it like it is. DantexLady
1. Time Machine

**The kernel of this idea formed while laying in bed and just wrote it with a few touch ups here and there. I don't know what came over me. I guess the smut fairy visits whenever she wants too. This was gonna stay on my hard drive until I could make it better, but honestly it's a just brain scribble and doesn't need to be explained for what it is. :D**

**Besides, the world needs more sexy DantexLady.**

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"Fuckable" he said just like that from behind his solid desk.

"What?" she said almost quietly in shock again at the things that came out of his mouth.

"I said you...." he started without an utter shred of embarrassment coloring his remarks.

She stood up, walked up to the spare room and slammed the door before he had even finished his sentence. Five minutes later she had a suitcase in hand, Kalina Ann on her back and she was armed with every gun she owned.

"What the hell are you doing now?" he said with mild confusion.

"I'm leaving."

"Wha~"

"You can't say things...like..." and she paused, "I can't live here anymore."

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For two years they had inhabited the same musty old building. They had a tender partnership beforehand and after a year Dante had mentioned that they could do better work together. She could keep him from destroying profits with his wild fighting and he would, well, he would have company. Of course neither of them said it. She needed some kind of company too but they phrased it differently. Something about his family being partially responsible for the death of hers. She hardly needed looking after, but something inside him said he was responsible for humanity and in particular, this human.

Although lately they seemed a little strained. Yes, they were up nights but she was going straight to her room and he was either eating alone or she would say something that would cause that permanent smug look to drop right off his face. It felt like something, some huge elephant was in the room and no one wanted to mention it. She, not he, had said that perhaps coming clean about some issues would help. The first thing she said was that she was sorry for shooting him that night on the tower. She had no right to assume anything especially given his father's history. He wanted to retort that he was not his father and that had nothing to do with him other than being able to take a bullet or 50.

He had said he would stop talking to her about her family. It was obviously a painful and touchy subject and he would sometimes bring it up to get a rise out of her if she said something about wiping the floor with demon scum. With those topics out of the way she thanked him for not underestimating her endurance like their contractors routinely did. He thanked her for looking after money because he didn't care to. They went on like this until it felt lighter in the room. That was the problem, they had never said anything to each other. They thought the silent communication they had shared by the end of Temen-ni-gru would endure. No so when you live with someone for this long.

She bit her bottom lip and let it slide out of her mouth still wet from her bite. She said rhetorically, "We know what the demon and human worlds think of you but I wonder what anyone thinks of me."

Then Dante made his comment on her.

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"The fuck you say Lady, you started this." he said while casually jumping over his desk.

"And this is me finishing it." and she turned while he grabbed the one shoulder clear of a blade or gun.

He gripped her. Willing to let his hand tell her through osmosis somehow. He didn't want to say anything. She jerked her shoulder away and he let his arm go slack at his side.

He got defensive, he had made passes at her before and she ALWAYS swatted him away without so much of a thought. Sometimes she was witty, other times she told him off like he was the ugliest son of a bitch to walk the planet. He actually didn't mind. He liked her spunk, it turned him on in some perverse way. "Oh so you are going to decide in the next 5 minutes of your life what to do with the rest of it?"

Suddenly Lady felt 6 yrs old again. She was holding a coloring book, a box of stickers, and a rag doll. Her mother was scolding her for wanting to run away because she refused to go to bed that night. She had kneeled down to her daughter and asked her the same thing "You are going to decide right in the middle of the night where you are going to? Won't you miss me? Weren't we going to have fun tomorrow in the park?"

Back in the present Lady swallowed hard. She knew the next line coming. Like life was having a fun time making her relive her life over again in the same scenario.

"Because running seems to fix it all doesn't it?" she heard Dante's voice echo into her mother's.

This was all too weird, she remember writhing out from her mother's grasp and running right out the door and into the wooded area near her home. She heard the panicked yell of her mother calling for her father. She had spent the entire night in a cove next to a trickle of a stream. When she awoke cold and dirty to the sound of an entire neighborhood looking for her realized with childlike simplicity, she had gone to sleep anyways. Why did she struggle? She had missed them, and she remembered fondly her bed and warm hugs at bedtime. She called out to the voices calling for her.

She would miss him, she would remember this place fondly and her child voice said to her, "Don't make the mistake." Life wasn't having fun with her, it was life being nice, allowing her to mend those problems she was wrong about. She silently gave a minuscule nod to herself.

All the while Dante was ranting on about her asking questions she didn't want the answer to. She had started this honesty thing. She heard him say something about being deadly, spitfire, and smart and why did fuckable seem to be a problem because it was all true. He stopped talking only to notice she had turned partway towards him.

"Hey," he said softly, " you are going to have to either ignore or accept things people say. Best part is you get to decide what to listen to. Why do you think I am the way I am?"

"Egotistical ass." she muttered.

"Yup." he smirked.

She would stay wouldn't she?

He gingerly tugged at one of her side harnesses and undid it. Next came her ammo pouches and then her shoulder straps sliding off her shoulders. Lady blushed at her cheeks and her ears felt hot. It felt like he was undressing her. She took a small step back and she was stopped by his two fingers hooked inside the buckle at her hips. When she was stopped mid step he pulled her back to him with his fingers and she felt tension rise in the pit of her stomach when his two cold fingers brushed against the bare skin of the belly her shirt was just short enough to uncover.

"Lady," he said plainly.

The phone rang. They both looked at it like it was some foreign object in the middle of a place where only they existed.

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**Damn phone! Ruining my fanfic fun. That's ok, the phone can't save Lady forever. I hope the backwards and forwards in time parts were easy to follow. **

**Hope you enjoyed, and there will be an update in a couple days. **


	2. Bedroom Confessional

"_Lady," he said plainly. _

_The phone rang. They both looked at it like it was some foreign object in the middle of a place where only they existed._

Dante looked back at her and couldn't decipher her thoughts. The moment seemed soft and now the shrill ring of the decrepit phone broke it just like that.

In two strides he walked up to it and after a few "uh huh" "how many" and "where" he hung up. "We got a job tomorrow evening." As he turned he noticed Lady was gone, again. She had run to the bathroom.

Lady was running cold water and splashing it on her face to quell the red cheeks and sped up heartbeat thudding in her ribcage. What was that all about? Her brain had very much known what "that" was all about or what it was hoping it was about. She told it to shut up if it knew what was good for it.

For all she knew he was just making a point about her staying.

She walked out plain as she could muster and he was at ease sitting on one corner of his desk with a leg propped up. He wasn't going to push the issue. She walked to the couch and picked up her things and carried them back into her room. When she was done he was propped against her door jam saying they should get some rest because there was a job tomorrow evening and it sounded like fun. Lady nodded her assent and he left her to her thoughts.

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Lady slept on.... her dream world was giving her visions of Dante running after her and her ammo was running low and he was getting close and then suddenly she was falling and he was jumping after her and then in slow motion they fell calling out each others name.

Lady woke in the middle of the night... she couldn't tell what time because her alarm had been facing the other away to keep the light out of her face as she slept. Down the corridor Dante's snoring could be heard softly through the door.

"A dream, what the hell..." she said groggy. She rubbed her face awake and padded out to the hall way where Dante's snoring suddenly stopped. It always stopped if she so much as made a sound at night. She never knew what to make of that. She didn't know if he woke up because she never saw him come out if he did. In the kitchen she poured herself some water and braced herself for more sleep. When she reached the top of the stairs the snoring began again. This was curious as she had surely made noise with th running water and her footsteps. Lady thought to just let it be but then her eyes adjusted and she could see his door was open. Curiosity got her.

He was asleep, snoring soundly flat on his back. He had kicked his covers off and the bright moonlight from his one window streaked across his flesh and revealed his old threadbare red shorts. That's all he ever slept in. In the morning it was a routine practice for Lady to avert her eyes up because they were so old they left little to the imagination and even had a few holes showing the skin underneath. Lady didn't know what to say so she said nothing. He'd chide her for looking if she did and if she didn't she could just avoid it.

Here in his bed she stared in a way she didn't dare during the daytime. His face looked placid with the calm of sleep, brow untroubled and his eyes fringed by lashes she could barely see. A slide of a nose struck out from his face like it was proud to be there and his lips looked dubious in their design. Normally they moved with the most asinine and lewd comments but here they looked benign and almost soft. Lady's eyes moved on, she didn't want to think on that part of him. His chest rose and fell and his abdomen looked solid, his legs like two firm trunks shooting out from those shorts winding down into his ankles and a pair of feet that were uncurled and relaxed. She had deliberately skipped his shorts not really wanting to identify anything there. She shifted her weight onto her right foot which made a floorboard creak almost silently. Dante stopped snoring.

"Lady," he breathed out fully awake with no trace of sleep on his voice.

Her eyes widened and she started to back into the doorway.

"Lady, it's ok. Why are you up?" he said as if it wasn't odd that she was in his room in the middle of the night in near darkness.

She opened her mouth and closed it before deciding honesty was something they were supposed to be ok with now. "I had a dream, and you were after me trying to take something but then I woke up."

He had turned on his side and propped himself up on one arm. She felt like he knew that wasn't all and she felt obliged to continue. "You were running and then we were falling and you... you.. yelled for me, like you had lost me or something." She left out the part where she had yelled for him too.

Dante sat up, hair falling in his eyes. He patted the bed next to him once almost authoritatively. Lady hesitated for a second and then sat.

"I had a that dream once. I was trying to give you something but you wouldn't take it. I was trying to help and you wanted to go it alone." he explained.

"Oh." was all she could muster to say.

Then he did something sudden, he stroked her back with his open hand. Another attempt at contact. She looked down and away. When the stroking stopped he let his hand drop and she looked back at him. He was staring and she was blinking. During one blink she felt his lips on hers. Unbelievable, this wasn't happening. She felt his hand on the side of her face cupping her cheek and he was going so slow, so teasing with his pressing against her. He felt warm and she felt fuzz above his lip and she could smell him, his heady scent right against her and then she felt a hand on her thigh inching up to touch her pajama shorts and then touching just under the fabric. She broke the kiss breathing hard through her nostrils when she noticed she hadn't been breathing all this time.

She swallowed looking at his lips, still dubious. They didn't even look like they had just interceded on her personal space. Lips parted, he looked ready to lunge again and the heart racing against her ribcage was saying let him only to be scared witless of what he was trying to do. He could hear it too, he noticed everything about her trying to access her. Her hair was tousled from sleep still and it added to the almost confused look on her face. She was looking at him, but not at his eyes and he thought maybe he had stolen her first kiss. She was pretty but her hard life had no doubt kept others an arms length away. It wouldn't be a stretch to think no others had dared risk what he was doing now.

This seemed like a moment where all these possibilities swirled around her waiting for something to trigger the outcome. She felt herself stand up as if she wasn't controlling herself. He stood up too, towering over her suddenly smaller form. She took a tentative step to the door and he stood in front of her exit path. She felt panicky in a way no demon fight ever had made her feel. He stepped toward her and she backed away. He stepped again and again until she backed into his short chest of drawers on the far side of the room. No where to go, she inched to the side and his leg stopped her. The other leg also in place at her other side.

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**So someone is making their intent clear aren't they. **

**Hope you enjoyed, more to come soon. **


	3. Guarded and Granted

_She took a tentative step to the door and he stood in front of her exit path. She felt panicky in a way no demon fight ever had made her feel. He stepped toward her and she backed away. He stepped again and again until she backed into his short chest of drawers on the far side of the room. No where to go, she inched to the side and his leg stopped her. The other leg also in place at her other side. _

"Da-" she uttered and he had grabbed her waist and sat her on the chest. His hands had quickly left her side and wandered the same area of her shorts as before completely undeterred. This distraction left her unguarded when he lowered his head again and took her bottom lip into his and sucked. That little stolen kiss on the bed made him think of a few more things he'd like to steal from her. He had wanted to taste her for a long time now. That hint from before wasn't enough and this time he got right down to business. His tongue flicked out and snaked its way into the warm wet of her mouth. He felt her protest and try to pull away at his blatant invasion. That only got her a hand at the back of her head to hold her in place as he encouraged her tongue to play with his. At first it felt like he was in too deep and she didn't know what to do but he eased back and guided her tongue to his. Sliding over hers and teasing her to play with him.

Lady was being seduced and she knew it. He was turning on all his considerable charm and she knew she wasn't powerless against it but every time she pulled away he held her fast and steady to him. The kisses were wet and deep and there was a moan and she knew it to be her own. He was making sure he tasted every part of that little mouth of hers. Damn him, she could feel him warming her up from the tips of her ears to the soles of her feet. The tips of his fingers felt the smooth skin of her thighs rubbing them in small calming circles. All too soon she felt used to his touch there, suddenly not minding his intentions. As he did this he bit her lip to take her guard down before she realized what he was really doing. Slowly those hands were edging her knees apart. Lady couldn't even fight it. Everything felt so good that nothing could possibly be wrong about it. His lips kissed a trail to her ear and nibbled there. He kissed her lobe and whispered, "Let me in Lady."

Her own breath was shaky and she automatically didn't want to give in. Her stubborn will was quick to jump to her aid...that is until she felt his hot moist breath on her neck. He was poised right next to her pulse, like a hunter of prey ready for a killing blow. A shiver up her spine told him he had her like this. It was her call again. He could stop and she would be tormented by it, thinking about his almost kiss against her neck. Or she could given in and this was it. He decided to be wicked, he was half devil after all. He couldn't be blamed for his nature. His warm wet tongue slicked out and gave her a long slow lick right against her pulse. A ragged inhale of breath was her only response. He gave her thighs a small squeeze to drive his point home.

She felt herself weakening and he did too. Under his palms he could feel the toned muscles unbunching. This was almost permission he presumed. He didn't want to push the issue but few seconds that ticked by seemed ripe with sexual tension. Lady's mind was racing against the clock trying to find the reasons she should or should not being doing this with him of all people. Were they rushing? They hadn't even kissed until today and then to suddenly be making out in his bedroom. Surely, surely he just wanted to play a little right? No, they were practically adults now. She had seen the look in his eye as he backed her into this corner. He wanted a little more than a few kisses.

He breathed out again and that warm breath felt like hellfire on her senses. The feeling raced down her neck past her quickening heartbeat and settled right between her legs. She felt her inner walls contract, practically asking for him.

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**Well, damn. That's all I have to say about that. Lady is in a crisis of conscience. Dante is on the verge of ...well, he doesn't have just making out on his mind obviously. **

**Read and review please. I need to know what I am doing right and wrong. Thank you.**


	4. Handy Work

**Well then...this chapter started out _REALLY_ short and it needed some good bits in there. I hope you like it. **

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_He breathed out again and that warm breath felt like hellfire on her senses. The feeling raced down her neck past her quickening heartbeat and settled right between her legs. She felt her inner walls contract, practically asking for him._

Over his shoulder the bed caught Lady's eye. She thought of what he was going to do to her there and it felt like cold water ran up her spine and she shivered. Dante took this as a good sign a moved to pull her close when he felt her palm in the center of his chest. She wasn't pressing him away, she was just holding it there, testing if she really meant to hold him off.

He looked down at her palm slyly and grasped her wrist, smoothing it down his taut skin and each ridge of muscle on his chest. He hovered around the fine hair of his happy trail and began to dip her hand lower when she snatched her hand back knowing full well what he had wanted her to touch. That was her deal breaker. She wasn't ready for...that.

Still softly panting she put both hands on his chest and pushed. She didn't have to be forceful. He backed away from her and she scooted off the furniture to touch her feet to the cold wood. Her whole body sent out little shudders of protest; head foggy, arms drained, hips trying to steady, a dull ache of uncomfortable pulses of wet heat between her legs, and weak knees that seem to jangle a little bit as if they never held her weight before.

She didn't even say anything as she left his room with her arms around herself. Dante watched her go without a sound. Frankly, he expected this.

She simply went back to her room, ignored the water glass from before and sat down. She felt shaken by what she had almost done. Just like that and she would have been under him, letting him do whatever he wanted. Even now the idea seemed dangerously good. She felt her legs almost get up and she crossed them. That only made matters worse as that only emphasized the arousal there. Frustrated, she rolled onto her bed. Sleep spent several minutes toying with her. No good, there was still pent up energy and without even consciously thinking about it she smoothed her hand down to her shorts and her fingers curled at the waistband before she paused. She bit her lip thinking of excuses for what she was about to do. This is normal, healthy even...it had nothing to do with him and she just had to let off some steam. It even extended to what just happened; it had been a while, her body just needed an outlet and that's why things went as far as they did. That seemed plausible and she let her hand caress the flesh below. She wasn't surprised to find wetness but she was a little dismayed at how wet when she rubbed herself into a rhythm.

Dante was in his bedroom listening to her door slam and the creak of her laying on her bed. He took a deep breath and looked down at his tented shorts with a small smirk. Well, looked like he was going to have to take care of that himself. But he mentally congratulated himself on what he got from her. Sure it didn't come out completely fruitful but this was a war he was fighting here. He could lose a battle here and there. Stood to keep things....interesting.

Interesting was just the right word when his ear picked up something muffled. He stood stock still and cast around for another sound. It was a few moments when he heard a very very faint gasp. He silently left his room and avoided the few creaky floorboards as he made a way down the hall. He was passing the room of only other living soul in the house when he heard her bed creak again. He was about to go on down the stairs when a sound he couldn't label as a bed, floorboard, or anything else caught his ear. It sounded like...repeated breath. Again standing still, he waited and heard another bed creak. His eyebrows raised and he thought Lady was having a hard time sleeping. Well that made him happy. Served her right for leaving him cold. She was every bit as heated as he was and he wasn't coming off that high quickly so she shouldn't either. In the middle of this triumphant musing he heard a small gasp. Oh no no no, this was TOO good. She couldn't be...she wouldn't be. He put his ear to the door, listening intently as the bed made a sound and he heard panting. He leveled himself mentally and thought she could be dreaming. He needed visual proof of what he hoped she was doing. He lowered himself against the wall and prayed to whoever was listening that she would be so wrapped up in it she wouldn't notice any shadow at her door. He slowly extended his neck near the keyhole to peer in. What he saw made him go wide eyed.

In the near darkness she was sprawled out it looked like. One of her hands was hidden in her shorts and the other had pushed up her top to caress a breast. Her head was tossed back into her pillow obscuring her face. But who cares Dante thought. He had obviously come near the end of her self exploration as her lithe little legs were bending and closing around her hand. He could nearly smell the sex in her room. It was so faint he'd have to concentrate to scent it out. But no time for that, the visual of her frustration was so damn arousing. He absently started to stroke his own need while watching her.A few more seconds passed and Dante wasn't in the slightest concerned about the peeping tom he had reduced himself to.

Almost, the feeling was buzzing through her limbs and she could feel the start of something coming to a head in her abdomen. The feeling was so damn good, so raw, she started to grind her hips a little to prolong the pleasure. That was a bad idea, it caused her mind to immediately shoot to Dante doing this to her, grinding himself against her. She turned her head to muffle her gasp into the pillow. She unwittingly quickened her pace from how hot that idea sounded and to get this over with so she could get him off her mind tonight. That did it as her breath caught in her chest and she went rigid as waves of euphoria seized the warm wet skin under her hand and spread out to the tips of her toes. She slowly came out of her high and pulled her hand out of her shorts. The dim light caught the wetness of her fingers and she was staring at it.

Oh he had seen too much. He looked down at his manhood and saw it weeping pre-cum out of the tip. He hastily stood as best he could in the quiet of the night and made his way to his room. He barely made it as he stripped and touched himself. Only a few quick tugs and he came thinking about what she would feel like during her orgasm. He'd have to have her, he just had to.

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**Well that couldn't have been ANY better for Dante, could it? Well, she could have said his name at the end. But that's too cliché. He doesn't have to know she was thinking about him. I so want them to get on with it, but that's not as much fun now is it?**


End file.
